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Touchline Shouts and their Uses

The touchline instructions will be a new powerful tool for you throughout your FM10 career. The effects can be dramatic and can modify your game plan to suit specific threats posed by particular opponents at particular times. This can provide very powerful changes with minimal manual tweaking of the sliders.These changes can be exploited to ensure you turn those losses into draws and those draws into wins. Yet, with poor planning they can also have the opposite effect. The key question for many players will be when to switch and when to stick – and of course how to judge it all.Each of the shouts is listed here along with what they do to your tactics and some brief discussion as to when it is best to use them.Passing Length Modifiers

Retain Possession

Effect: Instructs the team to try to hold on to the ball rather than making rushed long passes.Action: Shortens passing length, slows tempo.Useful: When struggling to hold on to possession; when having low pass completion percentage; to keep the ball from the opposition when leading to hold on to a lead.

Get Ball Forward

Effect: Instructs the team to get the ball up to the forward line quickly to put pressure on the opposition.Action: Increases passing length, increases tempo.Useful: When not penetrating the opposition; when having high possession and/or pass completion rates but few good shots; when needing a goal later in the game; when playing on a large pitch.

Try Through Ball Modifiers

Pass Into Space

Effect: Instructs the team to play the ball in front of the receiving player so that he can run on to it and create space for attacks.Action: Increases try through balls.Useful: When not penetrating the oppositions; when having high possession and/or pass completion rates but few good shots; when playing against a side with far less acceleration or pace than your own.Pass To Feet

Effect: Instructs the team to make passes directly to a player rather than in front of him so he can run on to it.Action: Reduces try through balls.Useful: When struggling to gain high enough possession or pass completion percentages; when many passes are being intercepted; when your team has far less acceleration or pace than the opposition.

Passing Length and Direction Modifiers

Pump Ball Into Box

Effect: Instructs the team to play long balls in to the opposition penalty area to try to get an advantage.Action: Large increase in passing length but decrease in try through balls for defenders and defensive midfielders, tells players to play with less wide play, makes full backs and wingers hold up the ball, increases forward runs for forwards, sets maximum crossing for full backs, focus passing through the centre.Useful: When needing a goal late on in the game; when possessing taller and/or stronger forwards than the opposition defenders.

Clear Ball To Flanks

Effect: Instructs the team to clear the ball to the flanks in order to reduce the possible danger.Action: Large increase in passing length but decrease in try through balls for defenders and defensive midfielders, tells players to play with more wide play, focus passing to the wings.Useful: When trying to hold on to a lead late on in the game; when the opposition is countering through the centre; when possessing quick wingers who are good on the counter attack.

Long Shots Modifiers

Shoot On Sight

Effect: Instructs the team to take the opportunity to shoot whenever they get anywhere near to the goal.Action: Increases try long shots.Useful: When playing against a side who are “parking the bus”; when struggling to get any shots in at all; when needing a goal at all costs.

Work Ball Into Box

Effect: Instructs the team to only shoot once they get close to the goal.Action: Decreases try long shots.Useful: When shooting far too much from range; when creating a lot of shots but few clear cut chances; when playing with a team who are poor at shooting from range.

Pass Direction Modifiers

Exploit The Flanks

Effect: Instructs the team to play the ball out wide in order to try to play the ball down the wings.Action: Focus passing down the wings, increases forward runs, crossing and mentality for full backs and wing backs, increased wide play for wing players, central midfielders hold up ball.Useful: When the opposition are flooding the centre; when playing with good wide players; when playing with a team who are good at crossing; when playing on a wide pitch.

Exploit The Middle

Effect: Instructs the team to play the ball through the middle of the field.Action: Focus passing through the centre, increased mentality and try through balls for defenders and defensive midfield players, decrease forward runs for wide players, increase forward runs for non-defensive central players in midfield and attack, decrease wide play for wing players.Useful: When not playing with any wider players; when the opposition are leaving gaps in the middle of the field; when playing with a strong side with good central players; when playing on a narrow pitch.

Run Modifiers

Look For Overlap

Effect: Tells deeper wide players to run beyond the wide midfielders to offer more passing options and crossing opportunities.Action: Increases mentality, more crossing, cross from further up the field and maximum forward runs for full backs and wing backs, hold up ball and decrease of mentality, forward runs and run with ball for wide midfielders, attacking midfielders and forwards, reduces wide play for wing players.Useful: When using excellent attacking full backs and needing extra penetration down the wings; when needing more passing options in the final third; when playing against a side who are weak or undermanned down the flanks.

Take A Breather

Effect: Allows the team to slow the pace of the game down to conserve energy.Action: Decrease forward runs, decrease tempo.Useful: To try and slow the pace of the game when playing in very hot conditions; to keep players fit when well in the lead; to calm the game down before radically increasing the tempo and catching the opposition cold.

Width Modifiers

Play Wider

Effect: Instruct the team to play with more width.Action: Increases width, focus passing down both flanks.Useful: When the opposition is attacking down the wings; when the opposition is flooding the centre of the field; when needing more space to break down the opposition; when playing on a narrow pitch.

Play Narrower

Effect: Instructs the side to tighten up through the centre.Action: Decreases width, focus passing through the centre.Useful: When the opposition is attacking through the centre; when the opposition is leaving holes in the centre; when needing to keep the game tight and reducing space for the opposition; when playing on a wide pitch.

Defensive Line Modifiers

Push Higher Up

Effect: Tells the defence to push higher up the field when in possession.Action: Increases defensive line height, increase closing down.Useful: When playing against slow strikers; when playing against a team sitting deep; when needing to reduce the space of the opposition.

Drop Deeper

Effect: Tells the defence to sag further back when in possession.Action: Decreases the defensive line height, lower closing down.Useful: When playing against quicker strikers; when playing against a team pushing up; when looking for more space with a team packing the midfield and defence.

Closing Down Modifiers

Hassle Opponents

Effect: Instructs the team to close down the opposition and reduce the space available.Action: Vastly increases closing down settings, changes marking to tight-man, increases tempo.Useful: When needing to regain possession quickly; when playing against a slow, technically inferior team; when needing to reduce space for the opposition.

Stand-Off Opponents

Effect: Instructs the team to hold back from the opposition and try to direct them away from danger.Action: Vastly decreases closing down settings, changes marking to loose-zonal, decreases tempo.Useful: When playing against a quick, technically superior team; when needing to hold team defensive shape; when looking for more space to break down a team who refuse to come out of their own half.

Tackling Intensity Modifiers

Get Stuck In

Effect: Instructs the team to tackle hard to regain possession.Action: Increases tackling intensity to hard.Useful: When needing to regain possession quickly; when playing against a team with little bravery; when not getting a high enough tackles completed percentage.

Stay on Feet

Effect: Instructs the team to only make tackles when they are definitely “on”.Action: Decreases tackling intensity to easy, except for the “ball winning midfielder”.Useful: When conceding too many free kicks; when looking to hold defensive shape; when playing against very quick players good at riding a tackle.Extreme Shouts

The following shouts are only available when playing the contain or overload strategies.

Play Even Safer

Effect: Tells the team to play even more defensively when using the contain strategy.Action: Sets forward runs and try through balls to minimum for all players except forwards, decreases run with ball.Useful: Late on in a game when facing an onslaught.

Take More Risks

Effect: Tell the team to be even more gung-ho when using the overload strategy.Action: Sets forward runs to maximum for support players, through balls to maximum for all players, increases run with ball.Useful: Late on in a game when absolutely desperate for a goal

Which ones do you think make good combinations? I tend to use "Retain Possession" with "Pass to feet" and "Work Ball into box" when I'm leading or playing a better team. Then when I need goals I opt for "Pass to Space", "Get Ball Forward" and "Pump ball into box". Don't like to mess with the defense, for some reason, playing a high line works for this game, so 80% of the time, I'm doing that.

Which ones do you think make good combinations? I tend to use "Retain Possession" with "Pass to feet" and "Work Ball into box" when I'm leading or playing a better team. Then when I need goals I opt for "Pass to Space", "Get Ball Forward" and "Pump ball into box". Don't like to mess with the defense, for some reason, playing a high line works for this game, so 80% of the time, I'm doing that.